The Oregon Department of Forestry placed Mike Shaw on leave after a DEI “expert,” Megan Donecker, accused him of hiring based on merit instead of diversity.
Yes, Donecker complained to the department that Shaw admitted “he looks beyond gender and identity in hiring, seeking only candidates most qualified for the job.”
Donecker isn’t the only one, unfortunately.
She [Brenda McComb, vice chair of the Oregon Board of Forestry] said the state forester seemed to have made no progress implementing a “draft diversity plan.”“If progress is being made, it is not apparent to me, and if it is not apparent to me then it is not apparent to other members of the public,” McComb wrote in her complaint. McComb is the retired vice provost for academic affairs at Oregon State University.“I have two more years to serve on my term on this Board, and frankly I am exhausted from being stone-walled on this issue by the agency and their unwillingness to consider this a priority,” she wrote in an Aug. 23 email to Torrey Sims, the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging manager for the state Department of Administrative Services. “I am hoping that you or the Governor’s office will begin to hold this agency accountable in this regard.”Sims responded, thanking McComb for bringing the concern to his attention and telling her that two state diversity colleagues would “take over from here.”
Another employee complained the department’s hiring process “seems shady and leads to an old and current image by employees at ODF that it is the ‘Good Old Boys Club’ or that it is ‘Who you know not what you know.’”
The department placed Shaw, State Forester Cal Mukumoto’s second-in-command, on leave after Megan Donecker, the former DEI strategy officer, complained about him.
Donecker claimed, “About a half-dozen employees who identify as queer told her they didn’t feel ‘safe or comfortable being out at work’ or discussing their lives and partners.”
Donecker told the department, “It is bad for women” and “even worse if you’re queer.”
People supposedly “still feel really uncomfortable having conversations around pronouns.”
Donecker’s complaint named Shaw and another manager:
Her redacted complaint is among those released by the state. She filed the complaint specifically against Shaw and another agency manager.Donecker said the managers sidelined her, undermining diversity and inclusion efforts. She was removed from the Forestry leadership team earlier this year without warning, she said.She provided The Oregonian/OregonLive with a Feb. 20 email from Shaw, saying she and two other agency employees were no longer invited to the team’s meetings. The team helps carry out the director’s priorities.
Shaw had legitimate reasons. The new system made meetings too large due to so many extra employees, “making the agency inefficient and ‘less fiscally responsible.'”
A large team impaired “the group’s ‘ability to hold correct conversations and speak in an open forum.'”
Shaw reportedly told Donecker the department needs “a more cautious approach” with DEI, using an “icy road” analogy to prove his point:
He urged a more cautious approach to carrying out diversity and inclusion goals, comparing the pace of change to speeding on “an icy road,” she recalled.“We don’t go 60 (mph) out of the gate or we’re gonna crash the car,” she said Shaw told her during their one-on-one meeting on March 5.Donecker said the department’s overall culture amounted to a “boy’s club,” recalling a meeting last year when Mukumoto told those gathered that one of their colleagues, a woman, “puts in a really good lunch order and then kind of chuckled, and everyone kind of chuckled.”“No one batted an eye,” Donecker recalled.
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